Resource Books For Parents
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Disclosure: This post contains referral (affiliate) links. If you decide to purchase any of these resources, I earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.
Food and Babies/Toddlers
Super Baby Food
“Completely Revised and Updated Edition of the best-selling Super Baby Food! 2014 Family Choice Award Winner, Gold /1st Place winner Feathered Quill Award in the non-fiction Informational Category, Gold Medal Winner of 2013 Mom's Choice Award in the Parenting Health, Nutrition, Fitness & Safety category.
Parents know that you get only one shot to feed your baby right and Ruth Yaron has been helping parents get it right for over 15 years. Ruth's book, Super Baby Food, is affectionately referred to as the baby food bible by over half a million parents worldwide because it literally contains everything you will ever need to know about feeding a baby and toddler.” Amazon Blurb
The Big Book Of Organic Baby Food
“Discover a giant collection of natural, organic, and irresistible baby food recipes to nourish your baby from infancy through the toddler years and beyond. From single-ingredient purees to complete meals that can be shared with the whole family, you’ll learn how you can create nutritious baby foods with ease.
Filled with tasty dishes like Sweet Potato Puree, Maple-Glazed Salmon, and Roasted Green Beans, this baby food cookbook offers tons of healthy and wholesome recipes designed to accommodate a wide range of tastes and needs.
This baby food book features:
An overview of ages and stages—Each chapter covers developmental changes and provides FAQs to help inform your nutritional decisions.
Purees, smoothies, finger foods—Choose from more than 150 recipes that will take your little one from purees to solid foods.
Family fare—Take dinner to the next level with 70+ recipes designed to be enjoyed by your child but shared with the whole family.” Amazon Blurb
Bébé Gourmet: 100 French-Inspired Baby Food Recipes For Raising an Adventurous Eater
“Move over mushy carrots and peas: The French teach their children to appreciate new flavors, ingredients, and textures from the first spoonful. No one knows this better than Jenny Carenco, mother of two and founder of leading French baby food brand Les Menus Bébé.
In Bébé Gourmet, Jenny shares her popular recipes from Carrot and Cumin Purée to Baby Beef Bourguignon, along with cooking tips and organizational tricks to help you awaken your baby’s taste buds and encourage healthy eating habits. Recipes for lunches, dinners, and snacks are organized by the major stages of development: 4 months, 6 months, 9 months, 12 months, and up.
Bébé Gourmet features:
• Dishes inspired by culinary traditions from France and other international cuisines
• Nutritional guidance at each stage from Dr. Jean Lalau Keraly, Pediatric Nutritionist and Endocrinologist
• Quick and easy recipes that take under 30 minutes to prepare (many under 15!)
• “Yummy Tips” on adapting recipes for the whole family.
By preparing satisfying, homemade meals, gradually introducing natural ingredients and seasonings, and passing on the pleasures of eating, you’ll be taking the first steps in raising an adventurous eater for life.” Amazon Blurb
French Kids Eat Everything: How Our Family Moved to France, Cured Picky Eating, Banned Snacking, and Discovered 10 Simple Rules for Raising Happy, Healthy Eaters
“French Kids Eat Everything is a wonderfully wry account of how Karen Le Billon was able to alter her children’s deep-rooted, decidedly unhealthy North American eating habits while they were all living in France.
At once a memoir, a cookbook, a how-to handbook, and a delightful exploration of how the French manage to feed children without endless battles and struggles with pickiness, French Kids Eat Everything features recipes, practical tips, and ten easy-to-follow rules for raising happy and healthy young eaters—a sort of French Women Don’t Get Fat meets
Food Rules.” Amazon Blurb
The Fuss-Free Toddler Cookbook: Mealtimes Made Easy with Healthy Recipes for the Whole Family
“Family meals with a picky toddler can be more food fights than fun―or the same five foods on repeat. Your days as a short order cook are over with The Fuss-Free Toddler Cookbook. This family-friendly toddler cookbook is your guide to delicious meals with simple adaptations that will please the little ones and the big ones.
Learn how a toddler can love the same foods that adults do just by changing a few simple things like cutting a tomato into a heart, or blending a chunky soup into a smoother one. In addition to tons of fun recipes, you’ll find great suggestions in this toddler cookbook for including your kids in the cooking process to make dinnertime a true family event.
The Fuss-Free Toddler Cookbook includes:
Toddlerize it―Simple tricks like resizing, reshaping, and adding or skipping certain ingredients will help little ones get interested and willing to try their food!
“If all else fails”―For the times when nothing works, look for recipe tweaks that are sure to make any meal more appealing to your little one.
Stress less―Let the tested advice and tips throughout the book help make your mealtimes more fun and build a lifetime of healthy eating habits.
Let The Fuss-Free Toddler Cookbook make your mealtimes easy, stress-free, and fun for the whole family.”
Parenting From Different Countries
Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“When American journalist Pamela Druckerman had a baby in Paris, she didn't aspire to become a "French parent." But she noticed that French children slept through the night by two or three months old. They ate braised leeks. They played by themselves while their parents sipped coffee. And yet French kids were still boisterous, curious, and creative. Why? How?
With a notebook stashed in her diaper bag, Druckerman set out to investigate—and wound up sparking a national debate on parenting. Researched over three years and written in her warm, funny voice, Bringing Up Bébé is deeply wise, charmingly told, and destined to become a classic resource for American parents.”
The Danish Way of Parenting: What the Happiest People in the World Know About Raising Confident, Capable Kids
“What makes Denmark the happiest country in the world--and how do Danish parents raise happy, confident, successful kids, year after year? This upbeat and practical book presents six essential principles, which spell out P-A-R-E-N-T:
Play is essential for development and well-being.
Authenticity fosters trust and an "inner compass."
Reframing helps kids cope with setbacks and look on the bright side.
Empathy allows us to act with kindness toward others.
No ultimatums means no power struggles, lines in the sand, or resentment.
Togetherness is a way to celebrate family time, on special occasions and every day. The Danes call this hygge--and it's a fun, cozy way to foster closeness. Preparing meals together, playing favorite games, and sharing other family traditions are all hygge. (Cell phones, bickering, and complaining are not!)
With illuminating examples and simple yet powerful advice, The Danish Way of Parenting will help parents from all walks of life raise the happiest, most well-adjusted kids in the world.” Amazon Blurb
The Happiest Kids in the World: How Dutch Parents Help Their Kids (and Themselves) by Doing Less
“Calling all stressed-out parents: Relax! Imagine a place where young children play unsupervised, don’t do homework, have few scheduled “activities” . . . and rank #1 worldwide in happiness and education. It’s not a fantasy—it’s the Netherlands!
Rina Mae Acosta and Michele Hutchison—an American and a Brit, both married to Dutchmen and raising their kids in the Netherlands—report back on what makes Dutch kids so happy and well adjusted. Is it that dads take workdays off to help out? Chocolate sprinkles for breakfast? Bicycling everywhere?
Whatever the secret, entire Dutch families reap the benefits, from babies (who sleep 15 hours a day) to parents (who enjoy a work-life balance most Americans only dream of). As Acosta and Hutchison borrow ever-more wisdom from their Dutch neighbors, this much becomes clear: Sometimes the best thing we can do as parents is . . . less!” Amazon Blurb
French Twist: An American Mom's Experiment in Parisian Parenting
“If there is no blood, don’t get up.” This single nugget of parenting gold, offered by a French friend at the end of a long dinner party, changed everything for writer Catherine Crawford, her husband, and, especially, the couple’s two young daughters. Crawford immediately began to see that while the United States had become the land of too-involved parents forever wanting to talk through their kids’ feelings about, well, everything, France employed a far more laissez-faire attitude toward raising les enfants. Learning to sleep through the night? A few tears never hurt anyone. Food? Let them eat cake, sure, but only after they’ve sampled lamb chops, broccoli rabe, and the stinkiest of cheeses.
Short of shipping her daughters off to Paris for these—and many other—invaluable early-life lessons, Crawford did the next best thing: She brought Old World–style parenting to Brooklyn. In the process, she discovered that her kids could actually hold a thought silently for two minutes without interrupting adult conversation, and that she didn’t, in fact, need to buy out half the toy store to make their birthdays special. She even found out how much her kids like lamb chops! While combining the best attributes of the approach français with what she saw as American qualities worth preserving, Crawford found a way to save her household and her sanity. Hilarious and insightful, French Twist reveals how Crawford and her family survived le grand experiment—and why they aren’t ever going back to the way things were.” Amazon Blurb
Say Bonjour to the Lady: Parenting from Paris to New York
“Where French parents rely heavily on the word “No” and dictate what their children wear, American moms and dads talk everything out with their kids and let them choose their own clothes. French children are well-behaved and stylish; American children are self-confident and creative. Which approach is better? Both—and neither—proclaim authors Florence Mars and Pauline Lévêque, two Parisian moms raising children in New York. Beautifully and playfully illustrated by Lévêque, Say Bonjour to the Lady pokes fun at the extremes of both styles, making for an amusing look at parenting today.” Amazon Blurb
Mindful Parenting Books
Being a first-time mom at such a late time in my life was completely new and a little challenging. I had no idea how to parent much less how to parent effectively and wisely. When I say effectively and wisely, I mean mindfully. Parenting mindfully is a whole new concept for me and like everything new to me I had to read up on it and learn how to do it right. These are a couple of books I have read and would highly recommend. Also, you can Youtube Shefali Tsabary videos, which happen to be amazing. Enjoy reading and learning.
The Conscious Parent: Transforming Ourselves, Empowering Our Children
“Instead of being merely the receiver of the parents' psychological and spiritual legacy, children function as ushers of the parents' development. Parents unwittingly pass on an inheritance of psychological pain and emotional shallowness. To handle the behavior that results, traditional books on parenting abound with clever techniques for control and quick fixes for dysfunction. In Dr. Shefali Tsabary's conscious approach to parenting, however, children serve as mirrors of their parents' forgotten self. Those willing to look in the mirror have an opportunity to establish a relationship with their own inner state of wholeness. Once they find their way back to their essence, parents enter into communion with their children, shifting away from the traditional parent-to-child "know it all" approach and more towards a mutual parent-with-child relationship. The pillars of the parental ego crumble as the parents awaken to the ability of their children to transport them into a state of presence.” Amazon Blurb
The Awakened Family: How to Raise Empowered, Resilient, and Conscious Children
“What if...?
What if I told you that you can put an end to all of your parenting struggles?
That you can learn to parent without fear or anxiety?
That you can end conflict with your children?
That you can create close and connected relationships within your family?
…Would you accept this invitation to a revolution in parenting?
We all have the capacity to raise children who are highly resilient and emotionally connected. However, many of us are unable to because we are blinded by modern misconceptions of parenting and our own inner limitations. In The Awakened Family, I show you how you can cultivate a relationship with your children so they can thrive; moreover, you can be transformed to a state of greater calm, compassion and wisdom as well.
This book will take you on a journey to transcending your fears and illusions around parenting and help you become the parent you always wanted to be: fully present and conscious. It will arm you with practical, hands-on strategies and real-life examples from my experience as a parent and clinical psychologist that show the extraordinary power of being a conscious parent.
Everyone in your family is ready to be awakened.
Will you take this journey with me?” -Shefali
The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind
“In this pioneering, practical book, Daniel J. Siegel, neuropsychiatrist and author of the bestselling Mindsight, and parenting expert Tina Payne Bryson offer a revolutionary approach to child rearing with twelve key strategies that foster healthy brain development, leading to calmer, happier children. The authors explain—and make accessible—the new science of how a child’s brain is wired and how it matures. The “upstairs brain,” which makes decisions and balances emotions, is under construction until the mid-twenties. And especially in young children, the right brain and its emotions tend to rule over the logic of the left brain. No wonder kids throw tantrums, fight, or sulk in silence. By applying these discoveries to everyday parenting, you can turn any outburst, argument, or fear into a chance to integrate your child’s brain and foster vital growth.
Complete with age-appropriate strategies for dealing with day-to-day struggles and illustrations that will help you explain these concepts to your child, The Whole-Brain Child shows you how to cultivate healthy emotional and intellectual development so that your children can lead balanced, meaningful, and connected lives.” Amazon Blurb
The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read: (And Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did)
“Every parent wants their child to be happy and every parent wants to avoid screwing them up (the way their parents did!). But how do you do that?
In this absorbing, clever, and warm book, renowned psychotherapist Philippa Perry tells us what really matters and what behavior it is important to avoid--the vital dos and don'ts of parenting.
Her approach begins with parents themselves and their own psychological make-up and history--and how that in turn influences one's parenting.
Instead of mapping out the "perfect" plan, Perry offers a big-picture look at the elements that lead to good parent-child relationships. This refreshing judgement-free book will help you to:
• Understand how your own upbringing may affect your parenting
• Accept that you will make mistakes and learn what you can do about them
• Break negative cycles and patterns
• Handle your own and child's feelings
• Understand what different behaviors communicate
Full of sage and sane advice, The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read is one every parent will want to read and every child will wish their parents had.” Amazon Blurb
Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans
“When Dr. Michaeleen Doucleff becomes a mother, she examines the studies behind modern parenting guidance and finds the evidence frustratingly limited and the conclusions often ineffective. Curious to learn about more effective parenting approaches, she visits a Maya village in the Yucatán Peninsula. There she encounters moms and dads who parent in a totally different way than we do—and raise extraordinarily kind, generous, and helpful children without yelling, nagging, or issuing timeouts. What else, Doucleff wonders, are Western parents missing out on?
In Hunt, Gather, Parent, Doucleff sets out with her three-year-old daughter in tow to learn and practice parenting strategies from families in three of the world’s most venerable communities: Maya families in Mexico, Inuit families above the Arctic Circle, and Hadzabe families in Tanzania. She sees that these cultures don’t have the same problems with children that Western parents do. Most strikingly, parents build a relationship with young children that is vastly different from the one many Western parents develop—it’s built on cooperation instead of control, trust instead of fear, and personalized needs instead of standardized development milestones.
Maya parents are masters at raising cooperative children. Without resorting to bribes, threats, or chore charts, Maya parents rear loyal helpers by including kids in household tasks from the time they can walk. Inuit parents have developed a remarkably effective approach for teaching children emotional intelligence. When kids cry, hit, or act out, Inuit parents respond with a calm, gentle demeanor that teaches children how to settle themselves down and think before acting. Hadzabe parents are world experts on raising confident, self-driven kids with a simple tool that protects children from stress and anxiety, so common now among American kids.
Not only does Doucleff live with families and observe their techniques firsthand, she also applies them with her own daughter, with striking results. She learns to discipline without yelling. She talks to psychologists, neuroscientists, anthropologists, and sociologists and explains how these strategies can impact children’s mental health and development. Filled with practical takeaways that parents can implement immediately, Hunt, Gather, Parent helps us rethink the ways we relate to our children, and reveals a universal parenting paradigm adapted for American families.” Amazon Blurb
Raising Good Humans: A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Cycle of Reactive Parenting and Raising Kind, Confident Kids
“A kinder, more compassionate world starts with kind and compassionate kids. In Raising Good Humans, you’ll find powerful and practical strategies to break free from “reactive parenting” habits and raise kind, cooperative, and confident kids.
Whether you’re running late for school, trying to get your child to eat their vegetables, or dealing with an epic meltdown in the checkout line at a grocery store—being a parent is hard work! And, as parents, many of us react in times of stress without thinking—often by yelling. But what if, instead of always reacting on autopilot, you could respond thoughtfully in those moments, keep your cool, and get from A to B on time and in one piece?
With this book, you’ll find powerful mindfulness skills for calming your own stress response when difficult emotions arise. You’ll also discover strategies for cultivating respectful communication, effective conflict resolution, and reflective listening. In the process, you’ll learn to examine your own unhelpful patterns and ingrained reactions that reflect the generational habits shaped by your parents, so you can break the cycle and respond to your children in more skillful ways.
When children experience a parent reacting with kindness and patience, they learn to act with kindness as well—thereby altering generational patterns for a kinder, more compassionate future. With this essential guide, you’ll see how changing your own “autopilot reactions” can create a lasting positive impact, not just for your kids, but for generations to come.
An essential, must-read for all parents—now more than ever.” Amazon Blurb
